this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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OpenChristian

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Jesus said to love our enemies. How can I learn to love my fellow Christians who are conservative? Are they even my fellow Christians? (By: u/DeepThinkingReader) (www.reddit.com)
submitted 1 week ago by Teknevra@lemm.ee to c/open_christian@lemm.ee
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I consider myself to be a straight ally, and I feel very passionate about it.

I attend a church that is Open and Affirming (Methodist). I volunteer for a cancer charity on days when I am not working, and the supervisor is openly gay and married to his husband.

He is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and the thought that I have family members, friends/mutual acquaintances who would tell him that "following Jesus" would require him to separate from his husband makes me extremely angry.

I feel anger not just toward conservative Christians I know but also toward conservative Christians more generally.

For example, simply knowing that someone attends a conservative church makes me automatically distrust them and doubt their good intentions.

When I say "conservative", I do not mean the obviously bigoted, sign-waving, "God hates you", Westboro' Baptist-style fundies.

I am talking about the "nice" ones.

The ones who will smile at you, serve you coffee, and maybe even have you over for lunch, but still tell you "lovingly" that you are "living in sin and needing to repent".

Those are generally the type of Christians I know and have met.

How do you prevent yourself from becoming too hateful towards them and continue extending Christlike love to those who are supposedly your brothers and sisters?

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[–] Paragone@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Feel free to downvote what I say, because I consider Thomas Ragland's book "The Eightfold Path of Christ" to be part of the proof that the New Testament is filled-with that the root-guru of the Christians, benJoseph, was pouring AwakeSoulism/Buddhism into the "land of reachable sinners", the Semitic heart of the Roman Empire, who needed it most.. & his "lost years" actually were in Hindu, then Buddhist, studies, in India..

( the Gospel of Mary, either Karen King's translation or Mark M. Mattison's translation, also contains Buddhism, but it is esoteric stuff, not easily recognized by people who've only encountered the sutra meanings, I think, like "Space Conqueror", & the stainless doctrine that Soul-ignorance can't permanently-own any Soul: it's just a transient-condition, etc.. )

Orient to the Continuum/Soul, not to the personality or incarnation that you're facing.

Accept their Souls, care-for & love their Souls, as one's brother's, as one's own, as one's mother's, while standing your ground & yielding nothing to their war against the entire essence of what benJoseph was putting in the world.

Let-go-of person attachments, & do what you have to do.

Remember, benJoseph promised not to bring peace, but fire/war: that's coming, this next decade..

( the seedling he planted is become now a sapling, & the storm is coming in.. : )

_ /\ _